The Secret Agent Essay

565 Words2 Pages

Throughout the book The Secret Agent written by Joseph Conrad, Conrad tells us the story through different characters who are apart of different groups based on jobs and interest. Whether it is Mr. Vladimir being apart of the government or Mr. Verloc being apart of the anarchist. Joseph puts people into the groups so serve the purpose of showing the audience where each character is in the social class. What does Conrad have to say about the social classes and the exploitation of those classes during the Victorian age. Not even family members of the Verloc household are free from this. Winnie’s mother does not just leave the house to join the charity. At first the mother is not even aloud into the charity because she isn’t widow but eventually she is allowed access because people she knows there, “Having infused by persistent importunities some sort of heat into the chilly interest of several licensed victuallers, Mrs. Verloc’s mother had at last secured her admission to certain almshouses…”(143) This complication shows the …show more content…

Verloc’s mother resisted from the social class she was going to, she also felt resistance from her own social class that she was leaving from. Mrs. Verloc asks her mom “Weren’t you comfortable enough in the house? Whatever people’ll think of us-you throwing yourself like this on a Charity?”(148) Mrs. Verloc tried to guilt trip her into saying and wondered if she was the one who drove her to live a different life style. Mrs. Verloc was very against her mother leaving her social class, from the questions she arose you can even they come from a selfish place. She firsts asks “Whatever people’ll think of us”, showing that she doesn’t want to look bad to others. Mrs. Verloc feels like people of her own social class will think poorly of her for letting her mother fall to a lower level of living. The mother is fine with it and says that it is the best for her and the family but Mrs. Verloc still rejects the action until

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